


anyone would die to feel your touch

by AndreaAnEnigma



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ambassador Katara (Avatar), Bisexual Katara (Avatar), F/M, Firelord Zuko (Avatar), Katara (Avatar) Needs a Hug, Post-Canon Fix-It, Zuko (Avatar) Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:53:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28787493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaAnEnigma/pseuds/AndreaAnEnigma
Summary: To avoid making the same mistakes, Katara takes time for herself after her breakup with Aang. Zuko supports her from a distance—even though he pines the whole time.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 128





	anyone would die to feel your touch

**Author's Note:**

> Hi y'all!
> 
> Soooo this is my first fic ever, and I'm super excited to post it. I had this idea floating around in my head of Katara leaving Aang and traveling around to find herself because I HATED how she committed herself to him so young and never got to explore her sexuality and her career, and while I love fics that have her immediately getting with Zuko after breaking up with Aang, I also fully believe that you need time for yourself to heal after a big breakup—especially if it's with the Avatar.
> 
> This is rough, but I'm just starting to get my feet wet in fanfic, so any and all feedback (as long as it's constructive) is GREATLY appreciated! Also please let me know if there's anything in particular you want to see from me. Without further ado, here we go! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy. :)
> 
> Title is from "gold rush" by taylor swift!

"Eyes like sinking ships  
On waters so inviting  
I almost jump in"

— taylor swift, "gold rush"

Zuko’s court meetings always seem to come alive when the ambassador of the Southern Water Tribe visits the Fire Nation. 

He should feel guilty for the way the tension in the room thickens when Katara starts in on one of his ministers that wants to pull funding from some of the free clinics in the outer villages. He knows the struggle she faces to be taken seriously in these meetings, has seen it in the angry tears she’d bite back when they would reconvene in his private gardens afterward, but Agni, she wears it as well as she does her navy robes. After the war, she never wore any other color, refuses to relinquish the title she had fought so hard for. In her anger, she is breathtaking, all blue eyes and river of dark hair, mussed from the humidity and the wind from the ship she’d just disembarked. 

When she’s here, the warrior meets the diplomat in her presence in court, coming together in a beautiful clash of perfect posture and a sharp tongue that’s never anything but polite and bitingly so. Zuko has always wondered whether she’d be good with swords, and he considers asking her again when she throws yet another barb at one of his most conservative advisors. He bites back a smirk because he would’ve fired that stale old man if he thought his court could handle another shakeup, and maybe he will if she’d ever consider—

No. He couldn’t go there now, not when she meets his eyes across the long table and, when no one is looking, sends him a wink. His heart picks up like she’s poked it with an ice dagger, and he doesn’t know how he manages to give her a smile in return, with the way every blood cell in his body is singing out to her and threatening to fight its way out to get to her.

Her ship had gotten in this afternoon, but he had been stuck in meetings all day, jumpy and anxious, unable to concentrate on anything but the thought of her return. She’d been gone nine months this time, arriving just in time for the summer. In her letters, she’d once said summer was her favorite season to spend in the Fire Nation. _It’s different than anything I’ve ever seen. The way everything lights up orange and gold like it’s been washed in sunlight, new and timeless all at once. Even the water feels different, warmer, more alive. And you come alive too, in your own way, lit from within. It’s breathtaking. Is that strange to say?_

Zuko’s smoldering fingertips had almost set the parchment aflame when he read that, and he’d never been more cognizant of the lack of control he had around her, the command she had on him.

But Katara wasn’t his. Not then. Not for the four years after the war, when she was the Avatar’s, or so the world thought. He had been taken aback but not surprised when she wrote to him of their breakup nine months ago, and an ember of hope sparked in his chest when she didn’t seem sad about it at all. He’d been broken up with Mai for a few months by that point; she had gotten tired of the way he’d absentmindedly touch the scar on his chest when he was thinking, the stack of letters on his desk, sealed with a familiar blue wax emblem, growing taller as the days went by. 

_We both know that_ this _isn’t what you want,_ she had said on the balcony outside his chambers, sadness unusually evident on her typically unreadable face. _We’re not kids fighting a war anymore. We’re allowed to have things that make us feel happy, not just safe. We’re owed that much, and more._

So Mai had left to stay with Ty Lee on Kyoshi Island, and Zuko was alone.

He didn’t bother telling Katara the reason for their breakup. She was with Aang, and as far as he was concerned, that was enough of a reason to keep his mouth shut about his pesky feelings. It didn’t matter that she seemed more and more unhappy with each passing letter, sharing her restlessness and boredom, her frustration at always being stuck in the Avatar’s shadow. He would not force her hand; he would not interfere. Even if she had started signing her letters _Love, Katara_. After all, she probably did the same for all her letters to their friends.

Right?

But then they’d broken up, and he’d almost told her then. Until-- _I need to figure out who I am without him. I’ve had enough of this life of following him around. I’m a master, a healer. I’m not the ‘Avatar’s girl.’ I’m going to the South Pole to help with the reconstruction, and I think it’s time I rebuild myself too._

Zuko knew a little something about re-invention, about the need to leave the past behind and start anew, so he sent a response to her letter encouraging her self-discovery, along with a shipment of supplies and volunteers to help with the rebuilding. It was the least he could do, loving her from afar.

Now, the gold of the afternoon sun was settling on her through the windows of the meeting chamber, wrapping her silhouette in a halo of sun, and it takes his breath away, the words of his financial advisor fading to a dull hum as he watches her. 

It’s clear that Zuko isn’t the only one noticing her. His health minister Kenji is eyeing her too, his smile sly. Zuko narrows his eyes, and in the rush of anger, the closing remarks of his head advisor almost escape him. He snaps back to attention; Shiyu is looking at him expectantly. It’s by sheer divine assistance that he’s able to stand on shaky knees and address the room. “That’ll be all for today. Unless anyone has anything else to discuss, we’ll reconvene at tonight’s dinner in honor of Ambassador Katara’s return. You’re dismissed.”

As the room empties, Zuko stands by the head of the table, fidgeting with his hands, and Katara smiles brightly, starting in his direction when Kenji steps into her path. Ever the diplomat, she stops to listen to whatever he has to say, her smile dimming to the polite one she uses in court, and Zuko feels a sick satisfaction at the fact that the health minister doesn’t get the full effect of _that smile_ , the one that stops his heart faster than Azula’s lightning and starts it again as quickly as her hands had that day. 

He had been waiting to see that smile for months. He thought that maybe, after she’d left the South Pole, she’d return to him, and though his heart sank when she went to Ba Sing Se instead, he understood when he read her letter: _Spring is the season for rebirth, isn’t it? I never understood, not until I experienced it here. It doesn’t feel real, the world coming to life again. Do you think we deserve such beauty, after all the devastation we’ve seen?_

She’d included a dried cherry blossom bloom in the scroll, and it smelled like spring and salt water and _Katara_ when he lifted it to his face. He still doesn’t know if he deserves beauty, or rebirth, or Katara, but he does know one thing, and he tells her so: _if there is anyone who deserves it, it’s you._

So another season passed by, Katara’s vivacity returning with every single letter, and his heart ached but also smiled for her. He couldn’t bear to ask her to return to the Fire Nation, not yet, not when she was just starting to heal.

The rays of summer had just started to shine on Caldera when the letter arrived. _I hope you missed me, hotman. I’m on my way. Love, Katara._

This conversation is going on just a little too long for his comfort, and he berates himself for his jealousy. Of course Katara would want to talk to Kenji; she’d always shown a particular affinity for the Fire Nation healthcare system, and he couldn’t help but once again picture her in a crescent moon crown, the change she would make to the nation if only he could—

But now she was coming over, sidestepping Kenji on her way to him, so he wiped the thought from his head, hoping she couldn’t see that he was already wondering what he could give her to avoid replacing her mother’s necklace. A gold ring, a ruby set in the center—

“Your Royal Fieriness,” Katara greets him, her smile returning again as she stands before him.

“Peasant,” he answers in kind, and she laughs that melodious laugh. He’s already opening his arms when she rushes into them, and her petite form collides with him in a cloud of hair and her scent, ocean water and water lilies. He rests his cheek on the top of her head, and he swears he feels her hold him tighter when he presses his lips to her hair.

“It’s been too long,” she murmurs into his chest, and when she pulls back to look up at him, her bottom lip is caught between her teeth, that relentless sunlight making her eyes seem impossibly bluer.

The effect is mesmerizing, and the words escape before he can call them back. “I’ve missed you. So much.”

Her lips curl into a smile, and her hands draw him closer, his own falling from her back—ever cautiously—to her hips. “Me too, Zuko. So much.”

Agni, the way she says his name ignites something in him, and he wonders how much time he has to muster the inner flame of his courage to ask her if she feels the way that he does. Kenji is staring at them from the doorway, and over the top of Katara’s head, he glares at the man until he visibly gulps and shuts the door to the chamber. 

Katara had turned when he’d looked, because she was always perceptive, and she turned back to him now, raising an eyebrow. At her questioning glance, he said, “It seems I’m not the only one who’s excited for your return.”

Her lips curled into an amused smile, and her hands snaked around to rest on his chest, right over his rapidly beating heart. “Yes, but he’s not the one I came back for. The one I always come back for.” 

If he wasn’t holding her, Zuko would’ve stumbled at the gleam in her eyes, the clever smile she gave him as she fluttered her eyelashes, and Agni above, was she _flirting_ with him?

To hell with tonight’s dinner. He’s been waiting nine months to have her in his arms, his whole life, maybe, and he wasn’t going to waste another second. “Dinner, tonight, just us?”

*** 

Katara knows what it’s like to feel wanted, but she has never been good at _wanting_ , so after four years of feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled, she breaks the heart of the Avatar on the steps of the Southern Air Temple.

After the war, she’d tried her best to believe in the tales Aang had weaved of their future, their destiny, and for a time it had worked. She had given being the Avatar’s girl her best shot, trying to bend herself to fit the current of his life, until she was so thoroughly exhausted and burned out that she just couldn’t do it anymore. 

She wasn’t ashamed to admit that she’d had something of a crisis after being with Aang for so long, so early in her formative years. She broke up with him at the beginning of autumn, just after returning from a visit to the Fire Nation. Guilty but relieved, she wanted to run right back to Caldera City, follow the pull of her blood that thrummed, always, for him, but she didn’t. A storm was brewing inside her, and she hadn’t been alone in four years. She was owed this time to herself, and she didn’t want to ruin her connection to the man who had become her best friend by rushing into something she wasn’t ready for.

If she ever had a prayer of being with him, she was going to learn how to be with herself first.

As the autumn winds erupted in full force, Katara took her still-grieving heart to the South Pole. Sokka and her father wanted her help in the rebuild, and she was all too happy to throw herself into the project, working alongside the northern benders and healers to make sure none of the southern culture was lost in the assist.

All the while, she sent letters to Zuko with updates, both as the ambassador and his best friend, and the roles wove seamlessly in the tapestry of her new life. Responses, as well as shipments of supplies and Fire Nation volunteers, were quick, and his words kept her warm in the harsh cold. It was almost enough to distract her from how much she missed him.

Almost.

Two months into her stay, she met Nuraq, a bender from the North leading one of the construction teams. He had a quick, clever smile and honest, kind eyes, and he was a gentle lover, caring and attentive. They were never serious, just something to warm her furs and release her tension, but Katara didn’t want serious, didn’t need it. After Aang, she’d had enough of life-altering, destiny-changing relationships with weighty expectations. When Nuraq asked her casually about whether she’d want a betrothal necklace some day as they lay by the fire post-tryst, Katara couldn’t take her eyes off the dancing flames as she asked him to leave and never return. 

The whole thing had only lasted a few weeks, so Katara hadn’t felt the need to bring it up in her letters to Zuko. She knew he was single again when she’d last visited the Fire Nation, even though he’d been rather tight-lipped about his breakup with Mai. She didn’t know why they’d broken up, just that it was amicable and without anger or resentment, and she reasoned that his evasiveness about it was why she didn’t want to tell him about Nuraq. 

If she ever got the courage to tell Zuko how she felt, she’d mention it then. She wanted to be able to assure him that Nuraq had only been a stop on her destination to him.

But she still had a ways to go until she was ready to come home.

Spring was advancing on the South when Sokka told her about the request from the Earth King to hammer out some trade negotiations, so Katara began the next season on a ship to Ba Sing Se, the cold wind turning into a fragrant breeze as she approached the Earth Kingdom.

After a month in Ba Sing Se, the cherry blossom trees were in full bloom, the ground awash with petals, when Katara met Jiang in an art gallery in the Upper Ring.

Jiang wasn’t a bender, but there was something grounding in the firmness of her hands on Katara’s hips, her lips pressed to Katara’s the way one pushes seeds into the soil. Flowers bloomed along the trails her lips and tongue left, and Katara thought she finally understood what people said about spring being the season for love. She could see how one could fall in love with the emerging sunlight illuminating their lover’s skin, the scent of jasmine dancing in the breeze of an open window beside a warm bed. During her time with Nuraq, she’d rarely let him linger after sex, but she spent nights in Jiang’s apartment in the Upper Ring, negotiating policy during the day and holding her lover at night, languishing in the fragility and safety of this new connection . 

Zuko wrote her letters still, and he mentioned—too casually—that the fire sages were pressuring him to marry. The first time he told her was the first time she felt the stab of anxiety, the pressure of time ticking like a bomb in the back of her head. While Jiang slept curled in her arms, Katara stared at the ceiling and tried to picture a life with her, in the comfort and safety of the Upper Ring, negotiating treaties and coming home to a beautiful green-eyed girl in her bed. It was pleasant enough, but Tui and La, she wanted more. She wanted fighting in court with conservative ministers, hours of relentless sparring, someone who knew what it felt like to fall asleep and dream of lightning, waking up gasping for breath with tears running down your face. 

Trying to picture a future, her future, without Zuko made her sick every time, and she soothed herself with the fact that whenever he’d mention the pressure to wed, it would be very quickly followed up by the assertion that he didn’t want to marry right now, had no desire to pursue any of the noblewomen his court threw at him. _Your letters are the only consistent companion I can bear these days, it seems._

It was enough, for a bit, but as the weather got warmer and summer approached, she felt the strengthening sunlight warming her blood. It was the sun that made it possible for the moon to shine, and courage had arrived with the beginning of the brightest light.

After nine months of running, she was ready. Ready for him, ready for them, ready for whatever this summer would bring.

She broke it off with Jiang at the end of the spring, and it was so gentle and soft, the ache in her heart. When Jiang enveloped her in a hug and wished her luck on her journey, she held her tightly and sent a thanks to Tui and La for all the care the brunette had given her, the safe place she’d been for Katara to rest her head during such a long journey to herself. She wrote to Zuko that night, and by the morning she was on a ship to Caldera City.

Zuko wasn’t there to greet her, and she didn’t expect him to be. She’d had the suspicion, all this time, that maybe he’d been waiting for her to come home, his letters peppered with enough hints that he missed her just enough to make her ache for him and not enough for her to feel rushed. But now…now she was ready.

It was unfair, how beautiful he looked even in the austere meeting chamber. The afternoon light came through the windows, falling on him like a blessing from the sky itself, and suddenly she ached to kiss him as the sun did, the gold of it reflecting off his crown and making his eyes spark impossibly brighter as he commanded the room. 

As Katara jumped into the negotiations, ripping into his advisors like always, she could feel the heat of his stare, those sunlit eyes burning into her. Glancing around the room, she could see some of the servants looking at him too, men and women alike, and she felt a stab of sick pride and possessiveness as he kept looking at her.

Any of them would have loved to bear the weight of that golden gaze, and she was finally ready to capture the sun. 

In his arms after the meeting, the heat of his body makes her blood boil, and his apparent jealousy over her conversation with his health minister whose name she can't even remember has made her heart flood with hope. Courage comes from the sun, so she's about to open her mouth to blurt out whatever her heart had to say when he asks, “Dinner, tonight, just us?”

Katara hadn’t expected him to be the one to ask. All this time, he’d been nothing but patient as she’d wandered the globe in search of herself, but the hunger in his eyes now betrayed exactly how long he’d been waiting. The relief that crashed over her made her knees weak, and she would have swayed if his hands hadn’t been holding her steady. Her laugh sounded more like a sigh as she pressed her cheek to his chest, his heart beating a steady tattoo of _home home home_. “That sounds perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> That's that on that! Like I said, it's rough. My tenses need work and I'll try to do more "showing" than "telling" in the future, but I hope you had fun with my first attempt at fic. :) Please leave kudos and comments, they are FUEL! I'm hoping to do a Painted Lady/Blue Spirit superhero AU oneshot, so I'm excited to post that soon. If you loved this or hated it, please let me know in the comments. Love y'all! :)


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